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MLB: Angel Hernandez suing baseball over discrimination

By Jason Burke

LOS ANGELES, CA - JULY 8: Home plate umpire Angel Hernandez signals during the game between the San Diego Padres and the Los Angeles Dodgers on July 8, 2011 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, California. The Dodgers won 1-0. (Photo by Stephen Dunn/Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES, CA - JULY 8: Home plate umpire Angel Hernandez signals during the game between the San Diego Padres and the Los Angeles Dodgers on July 8, 2011 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, California. The Dodgers won 1-0. (Photo by Stephen Dunn/Getty Images) /
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Most baseball fans that watch a fair amount of their favorite team’s games each season are at least vaguely familiar with a few of the umpires in the league. Generally, it’s not for the right reasons. Everyone’s favorite umpire, Angel Hernandez, is suing MLB, alleging racial discrimination in baseball’s promotion and post-season assignment policies.

I am a firm believer in equality. I am a firm believer in equal opportunity. I am also a firm believer that Angel Hernandez is just not a very good umpire.

With those conflicting views, this is a tough piece for me to tackle, but I want to be fair here.

It’s not very often that you see Angel Hernandez as part of an umpiring crew and breathe a sigh of relief. The video linked above shows a play in which he blatantly missed a call at first base that should have sealed a White Sox win. This one shows the Oakland Athletics getting screwed in Cleveland on what was a clear home run being called a double. Neither has great video quality, but the calls are obvious in both.

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Angel Hernandez has been so bad that I thought he was the home plate umpire in both of the A’s ALDS defeats in 2012 and 2013. The umpire that called pretty much anything Justin Verlander threw as a strike. Turns out he wasn’t. That one is on me. But it shows the kind of reputation he has–that it is perfectly feasible that he was in fact that terrible.

That’s all for the (planned) Angel Hernandez ranting.

At the heart of the matter, I get where he is coming from. In the article on Cincinnati.com, they mention that there are just under 100 MLB umpires and only ten are either African American or Hispanic. Given the game’s shifting demographics, that figure seems a bit low.

Hernandez also alleges that he has been passed over for promotions while receiving stellar reviews, at least until Joe Torre took over as MLB’s chief baseball officer in 2011. The article quotes the lawsuit, saying, “Though it may seem as if Major League Baseball’s problems with Hernandez begin and end with some personal animus Torre and some other individuals in the Office of the Commissioner may have towards Hernandez, an overview of how Major League Baseball has treated minorities such as Hernandez shows a much deeper and more troubling trend.”

Given that Hernandez has been an umpire since 1993, perhaps he should be shown more favorable considerations. Tenure counts for a lot in any line of work, after all. And if he was getting positive feedback, then that is on baseball’s umpire scoring system, not on Hernandez.

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But the fact that Joe Torre was brought in to help provide more confidence in the game’s umpires and started providing more accurate feedback coincides with Hernandez’s decline in standing does not seem as though it is racially motivated. Instead, it appears performance based.

There may very well be some truth to what Angel Hernandez is alleging in his lawsuit against Major League Baseball. He just doesn’t seem like the right guy to take the stand.

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